Phillips will present St Ives: The Modern Coast. The Artists Who Defined Modernism in Cornwall, a selling exhibition celebrating the legacy of the St Ives School. The selection brings together paintings, sculptures, works on paper, ceramics and prints by leading figures of the movement, including Dame Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Naum Gabo, Bernard Leach and Patrick Heron.
The exhibition will be on view at Phillips’ galleries at 30 Berkeley Square, London, from 9 July until 7 August 2026. It will be accompanied by important loans from The Hepworth Wakefield and The Ingram Collection, offering further context on one of Britain’s most influential artistic movements.
Located on Cornwall’s Atlantic coastline, St Ives became a defining centre of twentieth-century British modernism. Drawn to the town’s light, scenery and proximity to the sea, artists developed a visual language that united landscape, abstraction and modernist experimentation. Led by Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, a community of painters and sculptors transformed the once-remote harbour town into a celebrated artistic hub, establishing the St Ives School as a vital chapter in the history of modern art.
On loan from The Ingram Collection is Hepworth’s Sculpture with Colour and Strings, 1939/1961, which reflects the artist’s enduring relationship with the sea and relates to works on view in the Courtauld’s exhibition Hepworth in Colour. A further loan from The Hepworth Wakefield is Hepworth’s Maquette for ‘ Winged Figure’, 1957.
Among the highlights is Christopher Wood’s Drying Sails, Mousehole, Cornwall, 1930, a work that captures the light and maritime character of the Cornish coast. Also featured is Naum Gabo’s Linear Construction in Space No.1, circa 1950, created using Perspex and nylon monofilament, a material Gabo developed during his time in St Ives. The exhibition further includes Bernard Leach’s Elephant Jar, circa 1965, reflecting the international exchange of ideas that shaped the town’s artistic identity. Having arrived in Cornwall in the 1920s following his time in Japan, Leach helped establish St Ives as a centre for studio pottery, a legacy continued through Leach Pottery today.
The exhibition is viewable from 9 July to 7 August 2026 at 30 Berkeley Square, London, W1J 6EX.
(Press Release)
